1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a system and a method for achieving efficient production of hydrogen in a hydrogen generator, comprising at least a hydrogen generator, a liquid used by said hydrogen generator to produce hydrogen from, and a ceramic that emits infrared at wavelengths covering at least a portion of 3-20 micrometers range so that said liquid can be excited by infrared at said wavelengths before or during the production of hydrogen for improved production efficiency to reduce energy consumption and cost.
2. Description of Prior Art
One of the long-lasting problems with hydrogen generation for commercial purposes, such as running hydrogen cars or producing hydrogen for fuel cells and fuel enrichment in internal combustion engines, has been that the voltage required for the process has been inefficient and the cost of the process nearly offsets the gain. The inventor recognized that it would be of great benefit to produce hydrogen in a more efficient way to overcome the limitation of using hydrogen as fuel caused by the cost and difficulty of hydrogen production.
The present inventor has been researching and experimenting for years with infrared (IR) excitation effect on hydrocarbon fuels and discovered the use of IR radiation at 3-20 μm (micrometers) wavelengths for enhancing hydrocarbon fuel efficiency of engines, which resulted in the inventions of fuel combustion enhancement devices as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,026,788, 6,082,339 and 7,617,815. The infrared at 3-20 μm wavelength range is defined as “mid-infrared” by the U.S. NASA, but “far infrared” in Japanese convention.
While researching IR-effect on hydrocarbons, the inventor realized that the chemical bonds in molecules can be photoexcited with infrared shorter than 20 μm in wavelengths. When a photon is absorbed by a molecule, it ceases to exist and its energy is transferred to the molecule in one of vibrational, rotational, electronic, and translational forms. These molecules include water and most organic or inorganic compounds in liquid form. They absorb IR photons in 3-20 μm wavelengths to cause molecular vibrations.
For example, the IR vibrational absorption spectrum of liquid water may consist of 2.87 μm (asymmetric stretch), 3.05 μm (symmetric stretch), 4.65 μm (bend and librations), and 6.08 μm (bend). In addition, the intermolecular hydrogen bonding between water molecules can absorb 3.3 μm infrared to vibrate that reduces cluster size of water molecules. As disclosed in aforementioned U.S. patents by the present inventor, all hydrocarbons are known to be IR-active. Furthermore, IR vibrational absorption spectrum for other molecules can also be found in Organic Chemistry textbooks.
Due to the simplicity of electrolysis process and the equipment, conventional water-based electrolysis systems have been widely used in portable or stationary hydrogen generators for small or large hydrogen generation. Numerous techniques and systems have been developed involving various electrolytic solutions and electrolyzers, for examples, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,357,912, 7,485,160, 7,604,728, 7,641,889, 7,674,358, and 7,766,986, just to name a few of the latest inventions.
Hydrogen electrolysis is the process of running an electrical current through aqueous solution and separating hydrogen from oxygen or other elements in the solution. During the development of IR-fuel technology, the present inventor started realizing the potential benefit of improving hydrogen production efficiency in hydrogen electrolysis by exciting the electrolytes with infrared at 3-20 μm wavelengths to improve its chemical reaction rate.
In Quantum Mechanics, the reaction rate W is determined by Arrhenius equation:W=Rke−E/RT  (1)where k is a constant, R the universal gas constant, T temperature in Kelvin ° K, and E the activation energy required to overcome the activation barrier.
According to Arrhenius equation (1), it is easily comprehended that raising the reaction temperature T would increase reaction rate W. However, in 1930's Evans and Polanyi disclosed that increasing the reactant vibrational energy is the most effective at promoting reaction. Their expectation was that if the vibrational excitations were sufficient to lower the activation barrier of reactants E, substantial rate enhancement would be realized. Increasing vibrational energy will reduce activation energy E and thus increase reaction rate W.
Using water electrolysis as an example, the electrolysis of one mole of water produces a mole of hydrogen gas and a half-mole of oxygen gas in their normal diatomic forms:H2O→H2+½O2  (2)A detailed analysis of the process makes use of the thermodynamic potentials and the first law of thermodynamics. The Gibbs free energy of above reaction is defined byG=U−TS+PV  (3)in which U is internal energy, T absolute temperature, S final entropy, P absolute pressure, and V final volume. This process is presumed to be at 298° K (deg Kelvin) room temperature and one atmosphere pressure. Since the enthalpy H=U+PV, the change in internal energy U is thenΔU=ΔH−PΔV  (4)The change in Gibbs free energy becomes:ΔG=ΔH−TΔS  (5)or ΔG=285.8 KJ−48.7 KJ=237.1 KJ. The environment helps the reaction process by contributing the amount TΔS. The utility of the Gibbs free energy is that it tells what amount of energy in other forms must be supplied to get the process to proceed. Therefore, in the process of water electrolysis, an electrical energy input equivalent to 237.1 KJ will be required from a DC power supply (or battery), which corresponds to the standard electromotoric force (emf) of the thermokinetic reaction, or 1.23 eV/e (per electron).
Based on Equation (5), the ΔG can be reduced by simply increasing the environment temperature T. For example, when the environment temperature is increased from 25° C. (or 298° K) to 65° C. (338° K), TΔS will increase from 48.7 KJ to 55.2 KJ, which reduces AG from 237.1 KJ to 230.6 KJ, or by 6.5 KJ. This represents a 2.7% drop in power requirement.
On the other hand, following Evans and Polanyi's suggestion to increase the reactant vibrational energy through photoexcitation can effectively promote the reaction. When irradiating H2O molecules with infrared, the ΔG can be reduced by an amount equivalent to the photon energy at the wavelength λ, (μm):E(eV)=1.2398/λ(μm)  (6)
For example, water molecule can absorb 3.05 μm wavelength photon causing symmetric stretch. It is equivalent to provide the water molecule with 0.41 eV energy from IR photon, which cuts ΔG down from 1.23 eV to 0.82 eV, or a 33% reduction. In theory, the AG can be further reduced by the effect of so-called Infrared Multiphoton Absorption, a molecular multiphoton process (MMP) that describes how polyatomic molecules under collision-free conditions may absorb many infrared quanta. It describes how molecule absorbs multiple photons at assorted wavelengths of its fundamental and combinational modes.
The change in Gibbs free energy ΔG in a reaction is a very useful parameter, which represents the required electrical energy to proceed the process. As described above, the introduction of IR-excitation to the electrolysis is expected to significantly reduce the energy consumption and make it possible to occur at a lower operating voltage. It therefore reduces the cost of the generated hydrogen gas.